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Super Mario 64 for the PS1

(github.com)
300 points LaserDiscMan | 1 comments | 10 Dec 25 18:58 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Larrikin ◴[10 Dec 25 19:24 UTC] No.46222319[source]▶
Are there any pictures or video of it running? I understand why they are not on the GitHub page
replies(2): >>46222338 #>>46222969 #
platevoltage ◴[10 Dec 25 20:04 UTC] No.46222969[source]▶
here's another video that showed good gameplay shots that I happened to see last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kscCFfXecTI

replies(3): >>46223146 #>>46223788 #>>46228331 #
ginko ◴[10 Dec 25 20:18 UTC] No.46223146[source]▶
The distorted textures and weird triangle clipping issues are exactly what you'd expect from an unoptimized port to a platform that doesn't support perspective correct texturing or depth testing.
replies(3): >>46223921 #>>46224353 #>>46224532 #
bluedino ◴[10 Dec 25 21:49 UTC] No.46224353[source]▶
It looks pretty decent but seeing the texture warping and glitching reminds me of why I was team N64
replies(4): >>46225124 #>>46226611 #>>46227141 #>>46231464 #
01HNNWZ0MV43FF ◴[10 Dec 25 22:51 UTC] No.46225124[source]▶
The N64 definitely has the nicer GPU of the two. An N64 with a CD-ROM drive would have been amazing.
replies(3): >>46226246 #>>46230823 #>>46234770 #
klipklop ◴[11 Dec 25 00:52 UTC] No.46226246[source]▶
And a bit more texture memory!
replies(2): >>46226999 #>>46227453 #
president_zippy ◴[11 Dec 25 02:39 UTC] No.46226999[source]▶
The whole thing about the texture cache being the worst design decision in the N64 just gets parroted so much, but nobody can cogently explain which corner should have been cut instead to fit the budget.
replies(3): >>46227456 #>>46228349 #>>46228364 #
indigo945 ◴[11 Dec 25 06:38 UTC] No.46228349{3}[source]▶
The N64's CPU, with pretty much every single game released on the platform, is just sitting there idling along at maybe 30% load tops, and usually less than that. It's a 64 bit CPU, but Nintendo's official SDK doesn't even support doubles or uint64!

Of course, Nintendo clearly cared about the CPU a lot for marketing purposes (it's in the console's name), but from a purely technological perspective, it is wasteful. Most of the actual compute is done on the RSP anyway. So, getting a much smaller CPU would have been a big corner to cut, that could have saved enough resources to increase the texture cache to a useful resolution like 128x128 or so.

It should be noted, though, that the N64 was designed with multitexturing capabilities, which would have helped with the mushy colors had games actually taken advantage of it (but they didn't, which here again, the Nintendo SDK is to blame for).

replies(2): >>46228379 #>>46231176 #
eru ◴[11 Dec 25 06:45 UTC] No.46228379{4}[source]▶
> It's a 64 bit CPU, [...]

Only really in the marketing material. It's a bit like calling a 386 with an arithmetic co-processor an 80 bit machine, when it was still clearly a 32 bit machine by all metrics that matter.

However, I agree in general that the N64 CPU sits idle a lot of the time. It's overspecced compared to the rest of the system.

replies(1): >>46230507 #
malucart ◴[11 Dec 25 12:22 UTC] No.46230507{5}[source]▶
no, it really is a true 64 bit CPU. it's just that that fact is useless and it usually runs in 32 bit mode because games don't need that.
replies(2): >>46233908 #>>46240124 #
1. indigo945 ◴[11 Dec 25 16:59 UTC] No.46233908{6}[source]▶
Yes. Although people like to point out that on the N64's CPU the external data bus is restricted to 32 bits, that's irrelevant in practice. The real limitation is the RDRAM's data bus, which is only 9 bits wide (of which the CPU uses 8 bits). The problem is that the rest of the system simply cannot match the overspecced CPU.